Apple has landed a $12 million fine in Italy for ‘aggressive and misleading’ commercial practices regarding its iPhones. The issue has to do with the companies advertising over the water-resistance feature of some of its iPhones.
According to the regulator, Apple in its advertising that several iPhone models were water-resistant. However, the issue is that they did not clarify that the feature only works under certain circumstances. The phones are water-resistant only in ‘laboratory tests conducted with the use of static and pure water’.
The antitrust authority also says that the company’s disclaimer that its phones were not covered by warranty in case of damage from liquids, deceived clients, as they were not provided support when their phones were damaged by water or other liquids.
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It also says that the company did not ‘adequately contextualise the conditions and limitations of the assertive claims of water resistance.’ In addition to this, Apple was also in breach of Italy’s consumer code by refusing to provide support after phones damage by water or other liquids,
The iPhone models involved include; the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11pro, and iPhone 11 pro Max.
This is not the first Apple fine in Italy. It got a similar fine in 2018 over the iPhone performance throttling scandal. Apple had admitted to artificially limiting the processing power of iPhones carrying old batteries using software updates.
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